All posts by Ken Kemp, Creative Director

If you’ve ever considered video marketing to expand your brand, engage your customers and increase traffic to your website, here are the five types of video you should start out with.

The first video you’ll want to produce is your brand or introduction video. This one should play on your homepage, as it will be the first impression of your company that your potential customers see. It’s important to present your brand or service in a dynamic and memorable way. So this type of video really needs to tell your story and set your brand apart from the competition. Instead of hiring actors, use real employees to help humanize and differentiate your brand. If you have an advertising slogan or catch phrase, this is where to use it.

The second type is the testimonial video. Unhappy customers are often quick to jump online and post to social media scathing reviews of their unsatisfactory experiences with a product or service. A website should showcase positive customer testimonials to prevent potential customers from searching for online reviews on social media channels. The best approach is to produce your own testimonial video that plays on your site and features actual customers relating their personal experiences with your products or services. This style of video is incredibly powerful and far more believable than any other style. A well produced testimonial video can go a long way toward winning new customers.

Next up is your marketing video. This style has a similar look to a broadcast television commercial, without the 30-second time limit.
This is your chance to be creative and perhaps even humorous in tone. Your company marketing video should present your brand in the best possible light that showcases the unique features and benefits of your products or services. Here is where you should spare no expense with production values, locations, sets and talent. This style of video is often the most expensive to produce, but the impact it can have on your customers can be priceless.

Number four is a must have if you operate a retail business with a range of products. The product video is where to demonstrate the features and benefits of your products, in a simple yet powerful way. To keep your videos current, they need to be updated whenever newer models with upgraded features are introduced. Consumers that rely on researching a product online before they purchase, will benefit most from this style of video. Keeping your product videos current can positively influence sales both online and at the bricks and mortar level.

Lastly, there is the procedure or explainer video. This is an ideal option for service-based businesses who sell services without an actual physical product. Having a complicated concept or procedure simplified by a spokesperson can help to educate your customers to the advantages of your services. If what you sell naturally creates questions in the minds of potential customers, this style of video is where to answer them using a straightforward explanation or a convincing demonstration. The simpler your video makes it to understand a difficult concept, the more likely it is you’ll make the sale.

These are the top five styles of video that every business should consider producing when they decide to expand their brand through online marketing. There are many more videos a business may want to produce. Think training, interviews, live events, trade shows, conferences, product catalogues and more!

At Fotoflix Video Production, we partner with your business to tell your story in an informative and engaging video to post on your website and social media channels to promote your products or services. To discuss the power of video marketing and how it could benefit your business give us a call or shoot us an email and let us show you how easy and affordable professional video marketing can be.

Whenever making a video is mentioned, there is always someone who knows someone that would probably do it for free. Usually it turns out to be a distant relative who will show up with the latest smartphone and a keen interest in taking selfies for their own social media page.

Is this who you want filming and producing your web commercial? Sure the price was right, but if and when you ever see his finished video will it be of a professional quality that you would want to represent your business to your customers?

There is a world of difference between zealous relatives who think it would be a blast to film your video and a professional videographer with years of experience, using a professional camera with microphone, cine lenses and specialized gear like tripods, sliders, dollies, monitors and more! The results speak for themselves. When you watch a awesome web commercial for a company, it sends a message of quality, professionalism and leaves you with a lasting impression that this company knows what it’s doing. It’s very reassuring to potential future customers and helps reinforce the company’s solid reputation in their industry and marketplace.

The opposite is true when you watch a amateur produced video that totally sucks. You instantly form a negative impression of the company that can be hard to shake. Sure the price was right to have it made, but how much will it cost you in lost business? Was it really worth the initial savings in the long run? Remember, web videos play 24/7 on your site for years and years. What is the actual damage done to your company’s image and brand by posting an amateur video?

The key differences when hiring a professional vs an amateur videographer

Although your nephew’s new smartphone certainly is thinner than last year’s model, trust me, it is not the camera you want recording your company’s new web commercial on. Here’s why:

A smartphone, although thin and light, really has no easy way to lock it down on a tripod to stabilize shaky handheld filming. Unless you are trying for the cinema verite look, a true video tripod is required for rock solid filming without camera shake.

The audio captured through that tiny pinhole microphone will record terrible sound. It’s said that you never notice sound in a video until it’s bad. A professional uses balanced XLR shotgun or lavaliere microphones run through an audio adapter with levels, limiters and headphones to monitor the recording.

The tiny sensor in a smartphone is the size of your fingernail. Today’s professional camera sensors are many times larger and when used with professional cinema lenses, will produce stunning cinema-like true HD picture quality. Some cameras can even record in the latest 4K modes to capture up to four times the resolution of standard HD quality.

You are hiring years worth of experience

As with anything, experience and ability count. Your well-meaning nephew may be enthusiastic, at first, but how many live events or web commercials has he actually produced? Professionals have the experience, technical ability and storytelling vision to film, edit and produce a production you’ll be proud to post on your site. A pro knows not only how to shoot, but what to shoot and can direct the on screen actors to get the most from their performance and how all the many individual elements come together to form the final production.

Is hiring a professional production company worth it?

When you look at your options, a volunteer relative with a smartphone and time to kill, or a dedicated professional production company with experienced videographers, equipment and vision when it comes to telling your story, I know which one I would want on my side producing my next web commercial.

You are unique, but of course you already know that. There is only one you in the world. The service you provide your clients is just as unique as you are. There’s a story there–a story that needs to be told.

We can help you tell your story

Even if you are operating a one person business, the unique services or products you provide could really use promoting to help get the word out about your business. At Fotoflix we partner with your company to tell your unique story with an informative, entertaining and engaging video that’s easily posted online to promote your company to the world.

If you create unique products a video can record your artistry at work. If your company offers a service, we can come in and film you in action providing your exceptional brand of service to your customers or clients. Should you operate from a shop, store or office, what better way is there to showcase your company than with a virtual tour of your premises?

Is your company is ready to branch out or expand?

If so you need to promote your expansion online for the global marketplace to learn of your success. Even when your bricks-and-mortar facility is closed, your video continues to play online for all to see 24/7 on your website, attracting new customers and business directly to you.

Can you afford to produce a professional web video?

It’s not a question of can you afford to produce a professional web video to promote your unique services or products, it’s a question of can you really afford not to?

Expand your brand online.

Give us a call today at 905-665-9536 and see how easy and affordable a professional video production can be. With one simple phone call we can set your custom video project into “action!”

Have you ever bumped into someone you thought could be a potential client or customer and wished you had your laptop with you, to show them your sales pitch? It may have been while you were in the frozen food aisle at the grocery store, on the golf course or even while watching your kid’s soccer game.

You just never know when you may run into a potential new customer. If only you had your laptop with you! Although, even if you had it with you, remember how long it takes to turn on and boot up. Then you have to find the right file and open the proper program to run it. By the time you wait for all that to happen, your potential new customer has lost any interest they may have had in watching your presentation in the first place!

Imagine the sales and networking potential of having a slideshow on your smartphone or tablet? Just think how portable, handy and instant it could be to turn on your phone or tablet and start playing your company show. Now you can take a custom-made promotional slideshow with you wherever you go. From the golf course to the tennis court and from soccer games to the grocery store, restaurant and coffee shop. If you keep your phone with you, an opportunity may pop up even while walking your dog! Your smartphone never leaves your side and now it can become your most portable, profitable sales tool.

Fotoflix Video Production can take your promotional business slideshow and format it to play on any smartphone or tablet. So the next time you bump into someone who just may be a future customer or client, you can instantly impress them…just by passing them your phone.

Think of the impact and first impression that will make about you and your company. Call us today to discuss how easy and affordable it can be to produce a promotional slideshow for your company.